Posted By:
Jeff Romig
·
4/25/2013 1:19:00 PM
I’ve watched "The Breakfast Club" dozens of times since I was a kid. I love the film more with every viewing. John Hughes is a god, and that Saturday at Shermer High is iconic. The quotes are seemingly endless, and the freeze frame of Bender’s fist in the air before the fade to black will forever be seared in my mind.
I’ve seen "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" once. For me, it’s better.
Yes, I know, this might seem sacrilegious to anyone born before the 1990s, but I can’t help it. To me, the teens in "Perks" were more layered and more real than Hughes’ Brat Packers. When I was in high school – during essentially the same timeframe as the Pittsburgh teens in "Perks" – I wasn’t Andrew Clark or Claire Standish or John Bender or Allison Reynolds or Brian Johnson.
In many ways, I was Charlie. I wanted ...
Posted By:
Rachel Alterman Wallack
·
3/23/2013 1:30:00 PM
Some words of profound wisdom come from simple and wonderful places. Dr. Suess' classic character The Lorax , for one, sums up a nonprofit founder’s impetus: “Unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Of course, caring alone doesn’t create action, but it’s a fundamental start.
It wasn’t until last year, when Rich Eldredge, VOX’s associate editor, began regularly using the term “founder” as part of my position at VOX, that I truly began to embrace it. Sure, I’ve shouldered a lot of the responsibility for growing our nonprofit over the years, but I deliberately organized VOX to embody and project the voices of all of teens involved – not its founder’s.
As we get ready for VOX’s 20th anniversary, which we’ll celebrate from May 2013 (correlating to our incorporation in May 1993) through May 2014 (linked to when we received ...
Posted By:
Guest VOX blogger
·
3/21/2013 6:05:00 PM
By Cheeritza St. Germain, Georgia State University Master of Social Work VOX intern
It was a dreary Saturday afternoon, but that didn’t stop me from attending Darriea’s Expression Workshop at VOX. A few minutes before the workshop's start, I ran into the VOX teen staffer downstairs in the Peachtree Center food court where she shared that she was nervous about attendance, but was in high spirits and looking forward to the event. I asked Darriea where the motivation for an Expression W orkshop originated. “Not too long ago, I was writing an essay for college about myself, my motives, and how I wanted to contribute and make a difference in the world," Darriea explained. "I was reflecting on how VOX has allowed me to express myself and have a voice. I realized how important self-expression was and how equally important it was to have a voice. I wanted to bring that opportunity ...